The cascade of social, economic, and political devastation caused by AIDS in Africa is so great that in 2000, the U.N. Security Council called the epidemic a threat to global security. Despite the enormity of the task, Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance found a way of making a difference by operating at the village level.

In Malawi, 15 percent of the adults are infected with HIV and some 650,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS. The disease is primarily a heterosexual phenomenon. Married women face the highest risk of infection, so fostering women's empowerment becomes a key ingredient of any solution.

 

GAIA partners with existing networks of Muslim, Christian and traditional African religious communities to provide cost-effective intervention in remote areas. GAIA prepares village women to provide HIV/AIDS prevention education and encourage testing within their villages. Increasingly the stigma of illness and disregard for transmission risks are being replaced with plans to care for the ill and the orphans and reduce the spread of infection.

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